Battle Reopens Over Definition of Homelessness

It’s sad when nonprofits that advocate for the same cause openly fight with one another.

That’s what we’re seeing now as organizations dedicated to improving services for homeless people take opposite sides on a bill pending in the House of Representatives.

The bill at issue — the Homeless Children and Youth Act (H.R. 32) — would expand the definition of “homeless” in the HEARTH Act, i.e., the latest version of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

Why Worry About a Word?

The HEARTH Act definition of “homeless” sets the parameters for local programs supported by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s homeless assistance grants.

It determines both the populations the grant funds may serve and those that get counted and reported to HUD. The figures reported to HUD are reported to Congress — and ultimately to us, through press reports, blog posts and the like.

The definition thus not only reflects, but helps shape public policy.

First Round of the Definition Debate

H.R. 32 reopens an issue that split organizations at the time Congressional committees were developing the HEARTH Act.

The McKinney Vento Act defined homeless people as those who are in shelters, transitional housing or “places not meant for human habitation.”

People living in cheap motels or some friend’s spare bedroom weren’t officially homeless — and thus not eligible for HUD-funded services.

Their children, however, were officially homeless under Title VII of the McKinney-Vento Act — the part that covers requirements and funding for the education of homeless children and youth.

A number of national organizations urged Congress to broaden the general definition to include families whose children were already homeless under Title VII.

That would have extended eligibility for shelter and more stable housing to families living with friends or relatives or in motels, hotels, trailer parks or camping grounds because they couldn’t afford “alternative adequate accommodations.”

Other organizations, including the National Alliance to End Homelessness, resisted, foreseeing a large expansion in the eligibility pool with no commensurate increases in funding or fundable initiatives.

Congress ultimately tried to split the difference.

HEARTH Act Compromise

As things stand now, the HEARTH Act definition includes individuals and families if they’re about to be evicted and have no immediate prospects for an alternative residence.

Those living doubled up are part of this group, as are those living in motels — but, as with evictions, but only if they’ll have no place to stay in two weeks.

The new definition also recognizes families and unaccompanied youth who are already homeless under other federal laws, but only if they’ve been without permanent housing for a long time, moved frequently and can be expected to remain unstably housed for one or more of specified reasons, e.g., a chronic disability, a history of domestic violence or childhood abuse, “multiple barriers to employment.”

In short, an expansion, but hedged with conditions.

Round Two

No one, I suppose, found the compromise altogether satisfying. Advocates for the Title VII-type definition surely didn’t.

So they found a friendly House member — Congresswoman Judy Biggert (R-IL) — to introduce a bill that would make the HEARTH Act definition the way they always wanted it.

A leading proponent — the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth — says the legislation is urgently needed because “many homeless children and youth are suffering out of public sight.”

We don’t see the hardships they’re enduring because they’re living in motels or doubled up. But they’re actually more in danger of abuse, untreated health problems, hunger and “educational deficits” than those in shelters, NAEHCY says.

HUD’s regulations make it “virtually impossible” for these at-risk children and youth to qualify for the assistance the agency funds. Even those who might meet the HEARTH Act definition could be barred by the formidable documentation and verification requirements.

NAEHCY argues that local service providers are best qualified to know which homeless families and children are most in need of housing and services.

And there’d be no red tape because children and youth already verified as homeless by any one of four federally-funded programs, e.g., a local school district, a Head Start program, would be automatically eligible. Their families as well.

To top it off, the Biggert bill wouldn’t cost anything. That’s again where the conflict lies.

NAEH warns that the expanded definition would divert already inadequate resources from “children who literally have no roof over their heads.”

There’s no indication, it says, that additional funds will be provided to accommodate the increase in the number of families eligible for the assistance HUD funds through its Continuum of Care grants.

I think it’s hard to argue otherwise. If the expanded definition came with a bigger piece of federal budget pie, we wouldn’t have organizations fighting over who should get the crumbs.

Yet, as NAEHCY says, “policy should be based on reality, not fantasy.” Under the current definition, at least 762,000 or so children and youth that most of us would consider homeless aren’t counted as such. Not even an estimate apparently for the number of uncounted homeless families.

Getting a fix on the scope of the problem won’t solve it. But Congress surely won’t act if the numbers it gets minimize the crisis.

No Shelter For Homeless DC Families At Risk Of Harm

Two recent postings on the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless blog have me brooding about our priorities.

Kate Gannon, a legal intern at the Clinic, tells us about counseling a mother with three young children who’s understandably incredulous and upset when told that the Virginia Williams Family Resource Center can’t arrange any place for them to stay because the temperature is a few degrees above freezing.

Staff attorney Marta Berensin reports an outrageous threat to a homeless mother who’d gone back to the Center once again in hopes of help: Get on a bus to a shelter outside the District or lose your children to the foster care system.

The episode, she says, may be partly attributable to the recently-enacted residency verification requirements.

But the “myriad barriers” to shelter that families are experiencing are rooted in a shortage of family shelter units. Notwithstanding warnings, the Department of Human Services again failed to plan for enough capacity this winter.

I’ve been told that the District used to provide some form of shelter for all so-called Priority #1 families, i.e., those who have absolutely no place to stay.

Now it seems to have reverted to its minimal legal obligation. Homeless families are left to fend for themselves — on the streets, in abandoned buildings, who knows where? — unless the effective temperature is 32 degrees or colder because that’s all the Homeless Services Reform Act requires.

DHS apparently feels it has no choice. DC General — the only emergency shelter for families — has been full or nearly so for many months.

It announced last fall that it wouldn’t open more units there because that would run counter to its long-term strategy. But it apparently can’t open alternative housing units fast enough to keep up with rising need.

Nor do they provide a stable housing situation for the majority of homeless families. I understand that it’s now offering only short-term, phased-out rental assistance — obviously suitable only for families that are temporarily short on cash.

The hypothermia season officially ends on March 31. For at least the past two years, DHS  has kept what are technically winter-only units at DC General open longer to accommodate the ongoing stream of Priority #1 families.

Looks as if this year will be different. An e-mailed action alert from the Legal Clinic says that DHS plans to stop sheltering any more homeless families until next November, when the next hypothermia season begins.

It’s as if freezing to death is the only harm we need concern ourselves about.

Gannon writes that virtually every mother she interviewed was a victim of domestic violence. We know — or ought to know — that domestic violence victims often return to their abusers when they feel they’ve got nowhere else to go.

Homeless mothers sometimes give their children up or parcel them out among relatives if they can. How can young children understand this as anything except desertion?

Homeless children generally suffer psychological damage even when their parents manage to find safe places where they can all stay together.

They develop physical as well as mental health problems. Their schoolwork suffers. They feel isolated from their peers — as indeed they are, since they’ve few opportunities to socialize.

How much worse when they’re spending the night in a bus station or under a bridge.

I understand that the District had a large budget gap to close — and that it’s facing another. But I refuse to believe that our policymakers have no choice but to neglect the urgent needs of homeless families in our midst.

The Legal Clinic asks us to e-mail or call Mayor Gray and urge him to propose an increase in local funding for homeless services for Fiscal Year 2012.

As the DC Fiscal Policy Institute explains, $25 million will be needed just to keep funding level because the District won’t have certain federal funds to shore up the program.

Seems to me that’s not enough, given what’s been going on this winter. And what will happen to Priority #1 families before the new budget kicks in?